Enchantment
by Caroline
Summary: Giles/Jenny They'll always be captivating and charming each other.
1. Captivated

**TITLE: Enchantment**  
**PART 1/2: Captivated  
PAIRING: Giles/Jenny  
SPOILERS: None; AU season two  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: "Every move she makes captivates me."**

* * *

Every move she makes captivates me. The way she tilts her head, the way her tongue teases the inside of her cheek when she gives me an open-mouthed grin, the way she laughs. Not to quote mediocre pop from the 1980s, but it seems that... every little thing she does is magic. She insists that she's not a witch, but there can be no other explanation for the short amount of time it took for me to fall under her spell completely. Surely it's witchcraft.

Even now, as I watch her sitting beside me, concentrating on a book, I'm utterly captivated by her. The sight of her slender fingers turning a page, the scent of her perfume mixing with the mustiness of the first-edition Forrester book I'd given her as a present. I can't take my eyes off her. And I sense, as I see the corners of her full lips quirk in just the barest hint of a smile, that she knows what I'm thinking. That she's relishing the admiration.

A year ago, if someone were to tell me I'd eventually fall in love with this brash, sarcastic, technology-pushing computer science teacher, I am certain I would call that person a fool. She was the thorn in my side, giving me a headache every time she would go on a diatribe about the advancement of technology and some strange thing called "e-mail." She's a techno-pagan, a neo-hippie of sorts. She dangles a corkscrew from her navel, for God sakes.

But somewhere along the line, between our first conversation and the closing of the Hellmouth, I developed an odd sort of attraction to her. The annoying things she did and said started to become less annoying. And by the time summer break had ended and I spotted her walking across the glade at school, my heart skipped with the beginnings of an infatuation.

I began to notice the smaller details about her at that time: the curve of her supple lips, how she sounded when she was teasing me, the shine of her hair... that lovely beauty mark on her neck. After that, it wasn't long before those small details started to consume me. She would plague my thoughts during moments alone in the library, when I was supposed to be reading up on the latest demon. At random moments throughout the day, I would wonder what she was doing. And then it was inevitable... the time had come for me to ask her on a date.

Now here we sit, precisely one year later, on the porch swing of the home we've purchased together. Everything around us still smells new -- the wood, the paint, everything. The house was a bit expensive, but we can easily make it work between the two of us. We felt we both deserved a bit of a "splurge," as she called it, after everything we'd gone through in the last year. Plenty of good times, which were unfortunately outnumbered by the bad times. Her brush with death at the hands of Angelus was what truly made me realize that, despite anything in my past and hers that may have gotten between us at one time or another, I could no longer live without her.

My eyes are back on her as one of her hands leaves her book... reaches for a piece of that lovely dark hair of hers and loops it around her ear, and even this is captivating to me. I can't help but wonder if there'll come a time when I'm not utterly enthralled with her. She turns to smile at me before setting her book in her lap and I decide... no -- I'll always be enthralled with her.

When she reaches a hand up to my face, drawing me forward for a kiss, a diamond shines in the morning sunlight. The very diamond I'd placed on her finger this morning, when I asked her to be my wife. And she accepted.

So she'll be captivating me for the rest of our lives. I can hardly wait.

* * *

TBC IN PART 2/2: Charmed


	2. Charmed

**TITLE: Enchantment  
PART 2/2: Charmed  
PAIRING: Giles/Jenny  
SPOILERS: None; AU second season  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: "He has no idea how charming he can be."**

* * *

He has no idea how charming he can be. He's absolutely clueless. He hasn't the faintest idea what the accent does to me, how one look into his eyes can make me feel a million things at once, how the mere sight of him makes me feel giddy as a schoolgirl. He's got to be working some kind of magic spell on me. He's read up on plenty of stuff involving witchcraft, so it's not like he couldn't pull it off. But the funny thing? He thinks it's _me_ putting some kinda spell on _him_. So, maybe we worked some unknown magic on each other - who knows?

Even now, sitting next to him with my nose in a book, I still find him charming. And I'm not even looking at him. The way he watches me is charming, how considerate he is of me... how respectful he is and has always been. He dotes on me constantly; something I never would've expected from someone that could easily be perceived as snobby and reserved.

If someone would've told me a year ago that I'd fall head over heels for the snobby, old-fashioned, tweed-lovin' school librarian, I probably would've laughed. He was such a pain in the ass in the beginning, _so_ closed off to even the slightest hint of technological advancement. I don't think he even knew the difference between a spreadsheet and text file a year ago.

But somewhere between when we first interacted and the time the Hellmouth closed, he started to warm up. He acted less and less snobby, and I got to see a somewhat softer side of him. The nervous side, the hesitant side... the adorable, irresistible side. It was somewhere around that time that I started noticing little things about him I'd never really picked up on until that moment -- the way he'd take off his glasses when discussing something serious, how his mouth forms a few words silently before he actually lets himself speak to me, that thick mass of hair that I knew would feel incredible between my fingers, just... everything. I had been hoping and wishing for him to ask me on a date, but it ended up being me having to pluck up the courage to ask him. But I guess it doesn't matter now who-asked-who. Because no matter who drove us down this road, we've ended up just where I wanted.

So now here we sit, a year later, gently swinging on the porch swing of our new home. Where we live, together. Everything around us still has that "new house" smell -- the woodwork, the siding, even the paint. It was a little expensive, but we can make it work. We deserve it, after everything we've been through in the past year. We had plenty of good times, but unfortunately it's always the bad that overshadows. My near-death experience in particular, at the hands of Angelus, whose soul has now been perfectly restored before he could cause too much destruction to the lives of those we love -- our "kids," Buffy and the gang. I think it was that near-death experience, in fact, that bonded us more tightly together than ever; that made us realize we had gotten to a point where we couldn't live without each other.

He proposed to me this morning, in that usual charming way of his -- full of stutters, starts and stops and nervous throat-clearing. The second I saw him drop to one knee and knew what was coming, I could barely contain myself. I can still feel tear tracks on my face, long having since dried. He took so long trying to stumble through his proposal, I almost wanted to shout my answer out to him ahead of time. But I wanted to hear the words; soak them up, bask in them, close my eyes and feel them drift from my head to my toes.

Jennifer Giles. I'm already in love with the sound of the name.

I feel his eyes on me and turn to look at him, smile into those green depths that charmed me from moment one, and close my book, setting it in my lap. Reaching up to his face, I can see the diamond on my left hand glittering in the morning sunlight while I draw him in for a kiss -- my future husband. The man who'll be charming me for the rest of our lives.

I can hardly wait.

* * *

FIN


End file.
